PM Dancila: We will discuss several measures to deter crime

The government on Tuesday is set to debate for the first time on several measures meant to deter crime, by introducing more severe penalties for serious and exceptionally serious crimes - such as murder, rape, kidnapping, offences against sexual freedom and integrity involving children, Prime Minister Viorica Dancila made the announcement.

"We will discuss today, for the first time, about several measures meant to deter crime and increase protection for the citizens' life and safety. We need to introduce more severe penalties for serious and exceptionally serious crimes: murder, rape, kidnapping, offences against sexual freedom and integrity involving children. Thus, for first-degree murder, we plan to increase the minimum punishment to 20 years and for rape the punishment will be between 5 and 12 years detention. If the victim of the rape is a minor, then the punishment will increase to 7-15 years. Moreover, we are going to introduce heavier penalties for unlawful imprisonment. If this is correlated with kidnapping, then the punishment will be of 2 up to 8 years detention. When the unlawful imprisonment of a person results in the death of the respective persons, the punishment will be of 18 years detention. Considering the increase in the sentence limits, by applying the rule of the conjuncture of offences, detention for life could be applied in the future for more than just first-degree murder. (...) These are necessary measures, which we want to transpose into our laws as soon as possible, so that the citizens will feel more safe and we deter severe crimes committed against citizens," stated the PM, in the beginning of the government meeting.